over my head

Several things have happened lately that lead me to believe that I am in over my head, in more ways than one.

This whole comment debate on the two previous posts has generated a lot of thought on my end. As a disclaimer, I would like to say for the record that none of my students (and I have many) read my blog. They don't find me all that interesting. Reading what people have to say about my thoughts is somewhat overwhelming. I believe that I am entitled to write whatever I want to write on my blog. But I thank you all for reading. I suppose that if I am entitled to my opinions you are entitled to yours.

Next instance:
I started my new class last Thursday--it's called Theories of Literary Criticism. Doesn't that sound fun? I'm with you, it does NOT. But it's a required class, so I figured I might as well get it out of the way. But the scary part is that I haven't even touched anything having to do with Literary Criticism since undergrad, which was a good four or five years ago...so when on the first night our professor asked us all to tell the class what kind of critic we are, which was a stretch because I can't even define all the types of literary critics. It amazes me how much the brain is capable of forgetting. Then we covered the history of literary criticism--from ancient Greek up through the 1800s--in about 45 minutes. My brain hurt.

Next instance:
I am "presenting a paper" at a conference at Wheaton college at the end of the month, and after having a conference call a few weeks ago, I was completely overwhelmed by the intellectual level of ALL of the other speakers. I'm pretty sure I contributed nothing to that conversation, and am not even sure why I was asked to speak at this conference--the subject matter differs from almost everything else happening. It's very bizarre. So I'm halfway done with a 2500-word paper that I will be presenting in a few weeks. Yikes.

So, in the words of the Fray, there's 8 seconds left in overtime....everyone knows I'm in over my head.

Speaking of overtime, I know I've shared before that I'm a sucker for sports movies, but I re-watched Glory Road the other day and cried. That's all I wanted to say about that.